SECT. III.] OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 139

sitions are not only neglected, but even disavowed
and exploded, and their opposites, if not raising to
any great height, are acknowledged and -applauded.
A just pride, a proper and becoming pride^ are terms
which we daily hear from Christian lips. To possess
a high spirit^ to behave with a proper spirit when
used ill,—by which is meant a quick feeling of in-
juries, and a promptness in resenting them,—entitles
to commendation; and a meek-spirited disposition,
the highest Scripture eulQgium, expresses ideas of
disapprobation and contempt. Vanity and vain-
glory are suffered without interruption to retain their
natural possession of the heart. But here a topic
opens upon us of such importance, and on which so
many mistakes are to be found both in the writings
of respectable authors, and in the commonly pre-
vailing opinions of the world, that it may be allowed
us to discuss it more at large, and for this purpose
to treat of it in a separate section.

SECT. III.—On the Desire of human Estimation and
Applause—The generally prevailing Opinions con-
trasted with those of the true Christian.

THE desire of human estimation, and distinction,
and honour, of the admiration and applause of our
fellow-creatures, if we take it in its full Universality
comprehension, and in all its various mo- of the pas-
difications, from the thirst of glory to the swn-
dread of shame, is the passion of which the empire
is by far the most general, and perhaps the authority
the most commanding. Though its power be most
conspicuous and least controllable in the higher
classes of society, it seems, like some resistless con-
queror, to spare neither age, nor sex, nor condition:
and taking ten thousand shapes, insinuating itself
under the most specious pretexts, and sheltering